MIDMORNING EXCHANGE 

Wednesday, March 8, 2017 ~ 9:30AM – 11:00 AM

NY NATAS Office – 450 7th Avenue, Suite 808 

Free for NATAS members.

$15 for those without current NY NATAS membership

Topic: "Defying the Nazis: The Sharps' War" Dewey Wigod, Co-Executive Producer joined by Artemis Joukowsky, Co-Director

Hiking across the Pyrenees with a Nazi collaborators potentially behind every rock, Martha Sharp, a New England social worker, smuggled Jewish writer and outspoken Hitler critic, Lion Feuchtwanger to safety. Forging documents and narrowly avoiding capture, which likely would have meant torture and death, Martha and her husband, Unitarian minister Waitstill Sharp, masterminded the rescue of hundreds of refugees targeted for imprisonment or worse. The Sharps put their young children in the care of friends for months at a time, took on a mission that 17 other families had turned down, and left their peaceful Massachusetts town to go into Hitler's Kingdom of Hell to try and get some people out.

Martha and Waitstill Sharp's story calls to mind Humphrey Bogart's remark in "Casablanca" to Ingrid Bergman: "The problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world." Their grandson, Artemis Joukowsky, interviewed Martha for a school history assignment to talk to a relative who had exhibited exceptional moral courage. His interest and his passion for this story resulted in his directing this film. In the course of working to broaden the film's constituency, I helped Artemis get a rough cut to the attention of Ken Burns, who came aboard as Executive Producer, securing a national PBS air date, sponsors and the participation of Tom Hanks, who is the voice of Waitstill Sharp. The film premiered on September 20, 2016 and will have a free screening with Artemis present on Thursday, March 9th at 3:00pm at the Museum of Jewish Heritage, 36 Battery Place in Battery Park City (registration at www.mjhnyc.org).

Dewey Wigod brings creative and financial partners together to develop TV shows and films: The American Film Institute "100 Years . . .100 Movies" series of specials for CBS Network, counting down the hundred greatest movies in many different categories; "The Lost Kennedy Home Movies" for A&E, showcasing the family during the decades before Camelot; and "That Way Madness Lies . . .," a new perspective on the plight of the mentally ill in the United States (www.madnessthemovie.com). He is honored to be educating the community about the efforts of Martha and Waitstill Sharp (www.DefyingTheNazis.org).